New admissions about compensation

September 18, 2014

Nuclear damages official wrote paper admitting hidden criteria for compensation

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140918p2a00m0na008000c.html

A senior official at the governmental Nuclear Damage Claim Dispute Resolution Center has authored a paper acknowledging the creation of hidden criteria for setting the compensation amounts for Fukushima nuclear disaster victims, it has been learned.

While the Nuclear Damage Claim Dispute Resolution Center, tasked with mediating out-of-court settlements for individual claims filed over the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster, has explained to lawyers representing disaster victims that there were "no undisclosed standards," the revelation illustrates a clear contradiction to such explanations. The dispute resolution center came under fire in July after the Mainichi Shimbun reported that the center had set the causal relationship between evacuee deaths and the nuclear disaster at below 50 percent in most of the settlement proposals.

The paper in question was authored by Isomi Suzuki, a lawyer and a member of the three-person general committee, the supreme organ at the dispute resolution center. Suzuki contributed the five-page paper -- titled "Seeking prompt and appropriate implementation of nuclear damage compensation" -- to the July 2012 edition of "Jiyu to Seigi" (Liberty & Justice), an organ for the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

The dispute resolution center has consistently explained that it calculated compensation amounts based on the "interim guideline" set out by the Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation -- an organization supervising the dispute resolution center -- as well as the "general standards" drawn up by the center's general committee, denying the existence of any other standards. Both criteria have already been publicized.

However, Suzuki disclosed in his paper that there was what could be described as "a third standard," stating that "The standards that were developed through consultations by multiple mediatory officials in charge of similar cases could also be intended for uniform resolution, if such standards were conveyed to each mediatory official via examiners (lawyers)." Furthermore, Suzuki explained the reason why such a third standard was necessary, saying, "Many of the damage cases have no past precedents to refer to and cannot be dealt with only by these (existing) standards" -- in reference to the abovementioned "interim guidelines" and "general standards."

An internal document of the dispute resolution center obtained earlier by the Mainichi Shimbun includes the following statement: "Compensation for evacuee deaths shall be set across the board at 50 percent. Fine adjustments, such as setting the figure at 40 or 60 percent, shall not be made." It has also emerged that the "50 percent rule" had been applied in at least one case in which the causal relationship between evacuee deaths and the nuclear disaster should apparently be set at 100 percent. An internal source at the dispute resolution center has disclosed to the Mainichi that there are a large number of other internal documents aside from the "50 percent rule" one but that they have not been disclosed to the public.

Upon an inquiry from the Mainichi, Suzuki responded in writing that a third standard "is not binding but refers to the casual exchange of opinions and information sharing -- only to the extent that mediatory officials share their standards and use them as mutual references." He denied the existence of any third standard.

In response, the Mainichi sent further inquiries, pointing out the contradiction between his paper and the dispute resolution center's official views. However, Suzuki only replied, "My answer is the same as the last one," stopping short of offering more detailed explanations.

In the past, Suzuki served on a United Nations panel that calculated compensation amounts for individuals who suffered damage in the 1991 Gulf War and also joined the defense counsel in a damage suit over the 1994 China Airlines crash at then Nagoya Airport.

September 18, 2014(Mainichi Japan)